Page 192 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Investigating the Mystery of the Talking Plant
190
to the Archbishop and the situation will be rectified when the next
emissary of Yo comes to another trade exhibition.”
“Harunk! Don’t know if we’ll come,” said Emenoy grumpily.
“Ah, Reverend,” said Kaga placatingly, “has your contact with the
other emissaries been a source of satisfaction to you?”
“I’ve tried, lords know, to enlighten this mob of atheists and
monotheists. Sometimes I suspect that Languex machine of yours
does not do justice to the more sublime points of Yo theology. For
instance, last night I was talking to that Tzigian at his exhibit, and he
became very excited and agitated.”
“Oh, really?” said Captain Kaga. “Please tell us exactly what
happened. Perhaps we can fix the translator for you—if that’s the
problem.”
“Fine. Bulakko—that is his name, I believe—seemed to follow me
when I explained the basic tenet that every entity is a god, otherwise it
wouldn’t be an entity, and that any entity, whenever it changes, is
simply another entity, and thus another god. Did that come through in
your human language?”
“Yes, it did,” said Lugo. “Quite clearly.”
“Then,” continued Reverend Emenoy, “Bulakko asked me a
reasonable question about identifying gods; limiting the entities in
spacetime, as you technological races prefer to phrase it. I told him
about entities recognizing each other, thereby themselves, as gods, and
he asked how. I told him it depends: some entities are obvious; others
have to give you a sign. All of a sudden he rushed over to one of his
displays and started bouncing up and down on those rubbery
pseudopods of his.”
“‘What about this?’ he said, and picked up a piece of purple spongy
stuff. ‘This can give you a sign!’ And he did something to it—
squeezed it or poked it—and voices came out of it in a strange kind of
way. Everybody in the room stopped and looked at us; I thought he
was being silly, not taking the subject seriously. All that this clump of
fungus did was repeat back all the sounds that had been made around
it. Not really what I’d call a sign from a god.”
“Reverend,” said Captain Kaga, “this is a very fascinating account of
your missionary work. Can you remember who else was in the gallery
at the time?”

190